8 Things That Surprised Me About Playing BioShock Infinite

As I'm sure you most of you do now, I had a lot of expectations going into playing the first two and a half hours of BioShock Infinite. After the first BioShock -- a hell of an act to follow -- and the glimpses we've seen thus far, I felt like I had a pretty good idea of where Irrational was going with this one. Well, as Creative Director Ken Levine is so fond of pointing out, in a BioShock game, pretty much nothing is as it seems. Here are the ways in which BioShock took me by surprise.

First, a quick refresher: rewatch the Beast of America trailer to get a sense of things, and because it's a very cool video.



Second, a reminder that BioShock Infinite's release date is now March 26th. And now...

1: Freedom of Movement, Even While on Literal Rails

The flying islands that make up the city of Columbia are connected by a network of Sky-Lines -- think barely supported rollercoaster tracks curving through the sky. Columbia's residents, including Booker, can use magnetized, motorized hook-gloves to latch on and ride through the sky. You've seen these by now -- the point is that these rails aren't as point A to point B as they look. On several Sky-Lines I was able to not just control my speed, but also reverse directions, leap from one line to another, and drop to the ground at pretty much any time. This is definitely a linear, story-driven game, but many of the exterior scenes are open enough that the Sky-Line routes around them give a fair amount of freedom.


I also have to mention the subtle yet awesome sway of the camera as you ride on and dismount from a Sky-Line. It really gives a sense of inertia I haven't seen in a lot of first-person games outside of Mirror's Edge.

2: How Complete the Universe Feels

BioShock Infinite doesn't take place in the same universe as BioShock and BioShock 2. Irrational calls it a "spiritual successor," but it's easier to think of this as an alternate dimension that retains the Art Deco futurism style -- kinda like Star Trek's "Mirror Universe" -- where things are similar, but different. For example, injectible Plasmids are now drinkable Vigors, Eve (mana that powers your abilities) is now Salts, and Tonics are now wearable Gear, but all function in a virtually identical way.


I guess it shouldn't be surprising, given how effectively Irrational introduced Rapture and Andrew Ryan, but my stroll through the streets of Columbia was at least as impressive and immersive. The fact that Columbia is full of living, breathing people (as opposed to Rapture's ghosts) means a lot of story is absorbed through overheard conversations instead of purely through audio logs and ruins, and Irrational repeats its technique of having its narcissistic figurehead -- in this case the self-proclaimed prophet Comstock -- build a creepy animatronics-filled propaganda theme park to educate the city's populace about its leader and his philosophies. The first few hours of BioShock Infinite are incredibly dense with information, with much more stashed for those willing to stop and look.

Note: Given that Elizabeth's supernatural ability is to open windows into alternate realities, I won't be surprised at all if at some point Elizabeth peeks into the original BioShock universe and brings forth a Big Daddy to battle one of Columbia's similar Handyman cyborgs, or glimpses an alternate version of the lighthouse that launches Booker to Columbia that has burning airplane wreckage in the sea beyond it.

3: How Much Remains The Same

The Vigors that I've seen so far have felt mostly like retreads of BioShock's powers. The first, Possession, allows you to temporarily turn an enemy to your side (and if the enemy is human and not a robot, he'll kill himself as it wears off). Then there's a standard fireball power called Devil's Kiss, Murder of Crows, which is very reminiscent of the original's bee swarm, and Undertow, which launches enemies into the air. My play session ended before I reached the next power, but we know that'll be an electricity-zapping power called Shock Jockey. All of them can be charged up to deploy a proximity mine version of themselves, but in short, there's nothing really new there.


4: The Gore

Perhaps it was the relatively calm introduction to Columbia -- crazy George Washington-worshiping cultists aside -- but the first time I used my Sky Hook gauntlet as a weapon, I was taken aback. If you thought plunging BioShock 2's Big Daddy drill into an enemy's chest was brutal, imagine stabbing someone in the neck with a combination of a can opener and rotary saw and letting 'er (literally) rip.

Don't worry, it's ok -- the guards I shredded were horrible racists. As a scene in which I was encouraged to cast the first stone at an interracial couple helpfully makes clear just before the bloodshed begins, Columbia is one of the most starkly bigoted places I've ever seen in a game. While I'd never advocate decapitation as a punishment for ignorance, that kind of behavior -- combined with their efforts to kill me -- made me feel pretty much as justified in massacring Comstock's flock as Hitler's.


I also have to mention the gruesome animations the first time you pick up the Devil's Kiss Vigor, which shows Booker's left hand burning and melting the flesh away for a moment in an apparent hallucination. A lighter version of that effect happens periodically when Devil's Kiss is equipped, and it's striking every time. Oh, and using it in combat has a similar effect on your targets.

5: Rapid-Fire Environments

In just two hours I lost count of how many visually distinct areas I'd seen. Columbia's interconnected islands allow for a lot more variety than Rapture's rusty underwater domes and corridors, with everything from residences to churches to Elizabeth's observational prison and an entire museum full of several flavors of incredibly racist revisionist history. Even the outdoor areas, which share a common architectural look and feel, are packed with interesting stuff, like a carnival and a beach boardwalk in the sky (yup). It felt like a whole different place every few minutes, and it's such a breakneck pace that I wonder if Irrational will be able to keep it up for the rest of the campaign -- I hope so, because that'll be a wild ride.

6: Elizabeth's Not Annoying.

Think about everything AI companion characters have ever done to annoy you. Getting killed or stuck on geometry due to dumb AI. Not being helpful enough to justify their presence. Annoying, repetitive dialog. Escort missions. Elizabeth does almost none of that. She's a non-combatant -- even though she's present during the action, she never takes up a weapon, and she's never attacked. Comstock, after all, just wants to get her back after Booker rescues/kidnaps her from her tower. She will, however, help out in a fight by tossing you extra ammo and health periodically. She also serves as a mobile version of BioShock's Vita chambers when you die. (Though revives cost money, and enemies also regain some health. Plus there'll be a no-revives "1999 mode" available.) Perhaps most importantly, she had no trouble keeping up with me, even as I zipped across Sky Lines.


I'm struck by how much her personality and mannerisms resemble another "princess in the tower" character: Rapunzel from Disney's Tangled -- minus the hair, of course. She's lived her entire life locked up away from the world with only books to teach her, and her wide-eyed enthusiasm and wild, expressive gesticulation makes her extremely charming and instantly endearing. On the other hand, she's no old-school damsel in distress -- her modern attitude, ability to pick locks, and dimension-tearing power makes her an asset.

The one way she became annoying was, counter-intuitively enough, the way she would keep randomly throwing money at me. It happened just a little too often -- hopefully that's something that Irrational will tweak during this delay. Yes, I am complaining that a beautiful woman was following me around giving me too much free money. Wrap your brains around that.

7: Dimensional Tears (So Far) Aren't a Major Thing

It could be because I only just rescued her, but none of the really cool possibilities of Elizabeth's ability to open dimensional tears are really exploited in the first two and a half hours. In the brief introduction to her power, it's set up as though she can pop open a doorway to another world and anything might pop out to aid you in battle. The way that works so far, however, is to give you a choice between several relatively mundane things to bring into a fight, such as an extra place to grab onto with the Sky Hook, a turret, a pile of health, or a pile of Salts, all in predetermined locations. Each appears as a flickering shadow, and mousing over one and hitting the button (F by default) makes it real until you call in another one. I'd hoped for something a little more dangerously unpredictable, like a portal through which a speeding bus might appear to crush an enemy. There's still lots of time for that to get more interesting, of course, but thus far it's not the exciting feature I'd hoped for.


8: PC Options Are Looking Good

This demo version of BioShock Infinite included a slider for field of view and a checkbox to disable mouse acceleration. (The FoV slider wasn't labeled, so I couldn't tell just how wide it went, but it appeared to be upwards of 80 degrees.) Also, this will indeed be the first BioShock game that does not use the hated Games for Windows Live. [Fix: BioShock didn't use GFWL -- it had its own form of awful DRM. BioShock 2 used GFWL. Infinite will simply use Steam.] Irrational does appear to be paying attention to what its PC audience wants.

Naturally I could go on for quite awhile about all the details of BioShock Infinite, but instead of rambling on for 10 pages I'll just throw it open to questions in the comments section and address what I can there. What do you guys wanna know?